First, let me say that this is viewable on ubu.com and that I've been wanting to see it for many years, so godbless streaming video! I've not read the notoriously difficult novel, not that that would have helped me appreciate the film. But appreciate it I did, even though I only "got" about half of it. Fortunately, the film is subtitled to help understand Joyce's incredibly dense and inventive language, but I noticed that often HEARING it was easier than reading it, and have heard that if you attempt to read the book, that reading it aloud reveals Joyce's endless puns and run-on words more clearly. About the film visually, one must give many props to Ms. Bute for the haunting dream imagery and her choice of "Passages" to try to convey the flavor and narrative of the whole. After viewing, I referred to the introduction in Joseph Campbell's "Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake", which gave me a bit more insight into the characters and the story.
